


Finding Hope

by warmvanillasugar



Category: South Park
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-11
Updated: 2019-09-11
Packaged: 2020-10-14 11:15:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,434
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20599850
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/warmvanillasugar/pseuds/warmvanillasugar
Summary: After years of being completely apathetic, Craig now feels that he has a reason to care about the future, and the choices he makes now to influence it.Unfortunately, he is drastically behind on his service hours and needs to complete about 75 hours of volunteer work within a couple of months- if he wants to graduate on time, which now he does. But there aren't too many volunteer opportunities around the small town of South Park, and it looks like he's going to see Kenny McCormick much more than he anticipated.(Or, how the numb boy learned how to feel. Or, how the listless became wistful. Or, how the Grinch grew a heart. etc.)





	Finding Hope

**Author's Note:**

> hello! this is the first fanfic that i've ever written, so we'll see how this goes lol. i feel like i'm in a weird part of my life rn, so i think it'd be nice to write about someone else who's in a weird part of their life (maybe weirder)- so thus this was born!
> 
> rn this fic is marked as explicit- that's mostly because i don't want to later on feel daring and write a sex scene, then have to change the rating for people who only wanted mature or teen content. as of right now the amount of craig/kenny sexual canoodling is uncertain.
> 
> plz comment with thoughts!

For the fourth time that semester, Craig sat in the counselor’s office facing Mr. Mackey. 

“Now Craig, I understand that you’ve been going through a hard time, _Mkay_, I get it. But you have completed absolutely none of your service requirements, _Mkay_? Now, I know that you may not want to complete them, but…” Craig had heard this speech too many times to take it to heart, and simply sighed. 

“If I don’t complete the service hours, I don’t graduate with the rest of my class, and I need to complete them as soon as possible. Is that it?” 

Mr. Mackey took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. “Yes that’s it. I can’t force you to graduate if you don’t want to, _Mkay_? All I can do is try to convince you to wise up, _mkay, and if you don’t want to, then that’s up to you. You are excused.”_

__

Craig walked out of the office and to his Mazda, got in, and drove home.

-

Did it matter? Would it really change the trajectory of Craig’s life if he had to graduate after his classmates because he didn’t complete his volunteer hours on time?

The South Park county’s requirements for service were frankly absurd. It’s required for each student to complete seventy hours of service while they are in high school. While that may be an easier task during the four summers, Craig hadn’t done that. He had used his breaks to stay in, and fully take a break. School, socializing, extracurriculars- everything seemed to take much more out of Craig than it did his classmates. At the end of each school day, all he wanted to do was lay in bed and let nothing else exist. After hanging out with his so called “friends,” all he wanted to do was lay in bed and let nothing else exist. Most of the time, all Craig wanted was to float out into a different world, with no people and no responsibilities and be fully undisturbed.

Craig disliked getting into his head this much, because it became hard to think of anything else. It’s hard to pretend nothing else exists when so many thoughts are ebbing and flowing in him. Is this form of loneliness a feeling that all people have and no one ever acknowledges- or is it a very small form of Hell reserved for unlucky souls such as his? 

Frustrated and feeling out of his skin, Craig gets up and opens his laptop for the first time in a few days. He goes through reddit and clicks on random news articles just to see what the people commenting argue about. He gets hungry and makes himself some ramen downstairs, and when he returns he decides to check his email- which hasn’t been opened in a couple of weeks as far as he knows.

He scrolls through, mostly finding junk mail and advertisements, and after scrolling a bit finds that a few colleges have sent their admissions (rejections he should say). 

Today had already been a frankly shitty day, and Craig was somehow in a worse mood than usual that night. He was tempted to throw out the emails and never see his rejections firsthand. But tonight doesn’t feel like a night for ignoring what’s in front of him, so Craig decided to check the three colleges he applied to: Colorado State University, Colorado School of Mines, and NYU.

He got into CSU, and surprisingly their honor’s program.  
He did not get into the Colorado School of Mines- but this somewhat relieved him, as his parents were the ones who wanted him to study engineering.  
He got into NYU.

He got into NYU. Craig got into NYU. _Craig Tucker_ got into NYU. 

This is South Park- only about two students per graduating class leave the state, if any. In South Park, the students who were smart enough to leave the state are Wendy Testaberger and Kyle Broflovski- and chances are at least one of them will stay in Colorado. 

But not Craig, the solid B student who occasionally took an AP class; the kid who barely had friends; the loser who didn’t participate in any extracurricular aside from band. Craig forgot how to breathe for awhile, and started looking to see how much tuition would be, how much financial aid he was offered, how much he could get offered, how much he could take out in loans, if he had work study, how much flights to NYC are, how long it takes to fly to NYC, and then Craig got up and ran downstairs.

Craig’s parents were eating dinner quietly, and Craig stubbed his toe as he ran into the living room.

“God, fuck fuck _fuck_,” Craig hissed. 

His mother and father seemed to be alarmed, and his mother was the first to say anything.

“Craig, is everything okay?” 

“I got into college. I got accepted into a school.”

Craig tried taking a deep breath. It wasn’t like him to act like this, he needed to be cool, he needed to relax, he needed to be himself.

“… That’s great, I’m glad for you. We both are!” Craig’s mom shared a look with his father and hesitated. “We didn’t think you’d be this excited though, you didn’t seem particularly eager when we’ve spoken about college in the past.”

Craig took a deep breath and composed himself- emotions contained, face blank.

“Yeah I guess- but there is a problem. It turns out I somehow fucked up my CSU application, and they never got it- I got off the phone with them earlier today and they said there’s nothing they can do.”

Craig’s mother looked to be a bit in shock, while his father seemed to be straight pissed. “Well good to know that you acting like a fucking apathetic dumbass ruined your chances with CSU- I assume you got into the Colorado School of Mines then? Lucky for you, that’s actually a  
better- “

“I didn’t get into the Colorado School of Mines either, they rejected me.”

“Well then where the fuck did you get accepted? The community college?”

“NYU,” Craig breathed. 

His parents both stared at him, mouths agape.

“Where else?” Thomas stared at Craig. Craig hadn’t made eye contact with his father in years and could not recall his father ever showing this much emotion or restraint.

“Nowhere else. Only NYU.”

Craig’s father took three deep breaths and proceeded to leave the house. Craig’s mother turned to look at him, fists clenched, eyes wide. “Do you know how much fucking money NYU costs? Do you know how far away it is? We didn’t exactly plan for you to go to a private school on the opposite side of the country, Craig.”

Craig sighed. “I didn’t mean to put you guys in this position, I fucked up months ago and didn’t realize it. But I’ve also looked into financial aid options and I have an idea.”

Craig sat next to his mother, and spent the next hour or so debating over how much financial aid they were offered, all the housing options, how much he could work as a student, how much in loans he could take out, how much his parents could help, how much they couldn’t. Thirty minutes into the talk his father came back and stomped up the stairs into his room- not sparing a glance at Craig or his mom.

-

After debating and pleading, Craig’s mother said that she needed to go to bed- but she also said “Maybe.”

Maybe Craig could be one of the kids who leave Colorado. Maybe it wasn’t a mistake of the NYU admissions office. Maybe there was a higher power, who could tell what Craig needed and sent him a life boat. Maybe Craig’s been underestimating himself for years. Maybe Craig will finally escape South Park.

But there would be no _Maybe_ if Craig couldn’t graduate on time. And since Maybe is all he has, Craig raced back up the stairs and looked for every damn volunteering opportunity he could find nearby and immediately signed up to volunteer at the food bank on Randolf Street.

Craig looked up at the stars staring down on him, feeling resurrected from a seemingly eternal slumber. His heart raced, but not as fast as his mind- and he didn’t hate the feeling. Craig was awake. Craig felt determination, because Craig felt hope. He stared at the stars as they stared back, waiting as long as he could to get in bed.

Maybe the stars look different in New York City. Maybe Craig will be able to find out himself.

**Author's Note:**

> so i know kenny hasn't been introduced yet, but i promise he will next chapter- i just felt it was important to establish the WHY of this story- craig being accepted to NYU is essentially the catalyst for all the action in this story, so i felt it was important to focus on that
> 
> also i know it doesn't really explain how craig got into that school when it implies very few others could, and i plan on explaining that more in detail next chapter- the reasoning didn't feel as relevant for his thoughts/emotions in this part so i opted to temporarily omit it instead of awkwardly adding it
> 
> but yeah! i hope to update soon, and i'll add tags as i go


End file.
